Saturday, 3 March 2012
German company awarded Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline contract
According to the Secretary Petroleum, Pakistan has offered $250 million to a German company ILF Engineering for laying of gas pipeline inside its territory.
The laying of gas pipeline would be completed till 2014, the secretary added.
Cricket: Pak team for Asia Cup, Misbah retained as captain
The four-nation event will include defending champions India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan and will run from March 11-22.
Misbah-ul-Haq was retained as captain while Shoaib Malik, Imran Farhat and Adnan
Akmal were dropped from the squad for the tournament.
Pakistan's defeats in the One-Day International and Twenty20 series to England prompted calls for a change in team management and captaincy, but the PCB opted to retain Misbah for the Asia Cup.
Chief selector Iqbal Qasim said opener Nasir Jamshed and wicketkeeper Sarfaraz Ahmed had been recalled for the tournament.
"We feel that since Nasir has done well in domestic cricket and in the recent Bangladesh Premier League he deserves a chance to play for the national team," Qasim said.
The PCB is also expected to announce the appointment of Australian Dav Whatmore as head coach later on Saturday. Mohsin Khan has been acting as interim coach for the England series.
Squad:
Misbah-ul-Haq (captain), Mohammad Hafeez, Nasir Jamshed, Younis Khan, Umar Akmal, Azhar Ali, Asad Shafiq, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Shahid Afridi, Hammad Azam, Saeed Ajmal, Abdul Rehman, Umar Gul, Wahab Riaz, Aizaz Cheema.
20 kgs of plastic found in dead giraffe: Indonesian zoo
Kliwon, 30, was born at Surabaya Zoo, the biggest in the country, and was its last remaining giraffe, living alone in its pen for 13 years. It died on Thursday.
"We got the autopsy results last night. They found a plastic lump weighing around 20 kilograms and 60 centimetres in diameter in his stomach," zoo spokesman Anthan Warsito told.
The giraffe was also found to be infected with tuberculosis.
The plastic probably came from food wrappers the animal ingested after visitors tossed them into its pen over several years, Warsito said.
The incident comes after a spate of suspicious animal deaths at the zoo, including a critically endangered Sumatran tiger, and the disappearance of three baby Komodo dragons believed to have been stolen for the black market. (AFP)
Super-human brain technology sparks ethics debate
LONDON: A British ethics group has launched a debate on the ethical dilemmas posed by new technologies that tap into the brain and could bring super-human strength, highly enhanced concentration or thought-controlled weaponry.
With the prospect of future conflicts between armies controlling weapons with their minds, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics launched a consultation on Thursday to consider the risks of blurring the lines between humans and machines.
"Intervening in the brain has always raised both hopes and fears in equal measure. Hopes of curing terrible diseases, and fears about the consequences of trying to enhance human capability beyond what is normally possible," said Thomas Baldwin, a professor of philosophy at Britain's York University who is leading the study.
"These challenge us to think carefully about fundamental questions to do with the brain: What makes us human? What makes us an individual? And how and why do we think and behave in the way we do?."
The Council, an independent body which looks at ethical issues raised by new developments in biology and medicine, wants to focus on three main areas of neurotechnologies that change the brain: brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), neurostimulation techniques such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and neural stem cell therapy.
These technologies are already at various stages of development for use in the treatment of medical conditions including Parkinson's disease, depression and stroke, and experts think they could bring significant benefits, especially for patients with severe brain disease or damage.
GROWING FAST
But they also have huge potential outside the health context. In military applications, BCIs are being used to develop weapons or vehicles controlled remotely by brain signals, and there is big commercial scope in the gaming industry with the development of computer games controlled by people's thoughts.
Speaking at a briefing to launch the consultation, Baldwin said the estimated total global market for all neurotechnologies - including pharmaceuticals for the treatment of brain disorders - is around $150 billion.
"Setting pharmaceuticals aside, the value of the market for the devices and technologies we are dealing with is something in the region of $8 billion, and growing fast," he said.
Kevin Warwick, a professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading and a supporter of more neurotechnology research, said some experimental brain technologies had great potential in medicine.
"From the brain signals, a brain computer interface could translate a person's desire to move ... and then use those signals to operate a wheelchair or other piece of technology," he said. "For someone who has locked-in syndrome, for example, and cannot communicate, a BCI could be life-changing."
But he and Baldwin also stressed there are concerns about safety of some experimental techniques that involve implants in the brain, and about the ethics of using such technology in other medicine and other fields.
"If brain-computer interfaces are used to control military aircraft or weapons from far away, who takes ultimate responsibility for the actions? Could this be blurring the line between man and machine?" Baldwin said. (Reuters)
Death toll at 35 after tornadoes rage across US
Even as stunned Americans grappled with the magnitude of the destruction brought by Friday's twisters, the National Weather Service (NWS) issued new tornado warnings for parts of Georgia and Florida, in the country's southeast.
Trucks and trees were tossed aside like playthings as deadly funnel clouds ravaged parts of eight states in the US Midwest and South.
The images were surreal: a school bus smashed through the wall of a house, trucks thrown into lakes, solid brick homes reduced to rubble and wooden ones smashed into kindling, mobile homes flipped like tin cans.
Deaths were reported in four states, including Kentucky, where Governor Steve Beshear's office confirmed 17 fatalities. A total of 13 tornados roared across the state, causing damage in 40 counties and knocking out power to 22,000 people.
"It's been a very difficult 24 hours in Kentucky," Kerri Richardson, the governor's communications director, told.
About 300 injuries have been reported in the state, according to Beshear, who surveyed the damage in the devastated town of West Liberty.
At least 14 people were killed in Indiana, according to Governor Mitch Daniels, who surveyed the devastation in Henryville.
"We're not unfamiliar with Mother Nature's wrath out here in Indiana, but this is about as serious as I've seen it in my years in this job," an emotional Daniels, wearing a camouflage jacket, told reporters.
"Lucky it wasn't worse," he said, adding that while early warning systems likely saved lives, it was a "heartbreaking" loss for families.
Officials in Clark County, Indiana were scrambling to deal with widespread damage after roads were blocked by fallen trees and debris, and power and phone lines were knocked out.
The hardest hit was Marysville, where the small town has nearly ceased to exist, officials said.
"That's the information we have, that Marysville is no longer," US Senator Dan Coats of Indiana said in an interview with CNN.
The high school in Henryville suffered "quite a bit of damage," but luckily all the children were evacuated safely and only minor injuries -- some cuts and scrapes -- were reported, said sheriff department spokesman Chuck Adams.
Indiana activated 250 members of its National Guard, who used Black Hawk helicopters to reach hard-hit regions. Governors in both Indiana and Kentucky declared states of emergency.
There were three deaths in neighboring Ohio, including a city councilwoman from the town of Moscow, an Emergency Management Agency official said.
The Gulf Coast state of Alabama reported one death after tornadoes trapped people in rubble, destroyed houses and uprooted trees.
For Brandy Robbins, whose home in Harvest, Alabama was destroyed in devastating tornadoes last year, it was a sickening case of deja-vu.
"I realized lightning does strike twice," she told Fox News, standing outside the home she recently rebuilt, only to have it badly damaged once more. "Unfortunately my kids and I are going to have to rebuild again."
The latest wave of storms comes as people still were picking through rubble left behind by a string of twisters across six states that killed 13 people earlier in the week.
The NWS received 83 reports of tornadoes in eight states by Friday evening, bringing the week's total to 133.
More could be on their way as a "particularly dangerous" tornado watch continued into Saturday in four states in a massive storm that also carried golf-ball sized hail.
Some 545 people were killed by tornadoes in 2011, the deadliest tornado season since 1936 and the third worst on record.
This year tornadoes have come a bit early with the mild winter creating the right conditions for cold fronts to slam into warmer air.
"We knew it was going to be bad," said Angie Lese, a meteorologist with NWS. "All the ingredients came together for a significant outbreak." (AFP)
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Naveed’s father to take legal action against Meera 
LAHORE: Pakistani American Raja Pervez, who is the father of actress Meera’s fiance, has decided to initiate legal action against the star for swindling him out of $400,000, and not handing over a house in the Defence area of Lahore he had bought from her. According to family sources, Raja Pervez asked his lawyer on Tuesday to initiate legal action against the actress. He has also renounced Irtza Rubab, commonly known as Meera, as the fiance of his son Captain (retd) Naveed Pervez. Raja Pervez said he had entered into a deal with actress Meera to buy a furnished house No 164 in GG Block of DHA for Rs20 million from her. A deed was signed by him and Meera in this regard and it was decided that the actress would hand over the house to him in six months. Actress Meera received a Bank of New York pay order worth US$400,000 from Raja Pervez on Oct 14, 2009 and both sides agreed that Meera would deduct the price of her house from the pay order and return the remaining amount to Pervez after encashing it. Meera also sent a receipt, duly signed by herself and her mother Mrs Shafqat Zuhra Bukhari, to Raja Pervez after receiving the pay order. The pay order was deposited in Meera’s account titled Meera Enterprise in Al-Mashriq Bank of Dubai, and the amount was transferred to the account.
Raja Pervez said later on Meera neither hand him over the house nor returned the money, deposited in her account. Whenever she was asked for possession of the house, she used dillydallying tactics, and still one of her relatives was living in that house.
He said he had sent Meera a legal notice through his lawyer in this regard, but she did not respond to it. He said meanwhile Meera came to his house in the USA, but he did not ask her about the house possession as he was busy in the wedding ceremony of his daughter that day.
Raja Pervez said he would also contact Attique, who claims to be the husband of Meera, soon and extend him all help against Meera, and also seek his help. When he was asked why did he engage his son Naveed Pervez to Meera when the actress had deprived him of $400,000, he became emotional. He said his son was also repenting his decision of getting engaged to Meera after theft of his very costly wrest watch. He said his son purchased a diamond ring for Rs850,000 from a jewellery shop at MM Alam Road and gave it to Meera at the engagement ceremony. He said he had consulted his legal adviser and soon an FIR would be registered against Meera.
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